Captain Preetham Madhukar holds the secret to your success in life. Skills Beyond Education is his marvel that will transform you into the most successful version of yourself. In a world where education often falls short of preparing individuals for the challenges of the 21st century, he stands out as a beacon of change.
A seasoned sailor and visionary entrepreneur, Captain Preetham has dedicated his life to transforming the educational landscape through his company, Skills Beyond Education. With a keen eye for the future and a heart full of passion, Captain Preetham is poised to become one of the most inspiring business personalities to watch in the coming years.
Defeating Idiocracy
There’s a reason behind his establishing the company and an inspirational story behind his beginning this endeavour. Captain Preetham’s journey began in 2010 when he watched the futuristic movie “Idiocracy,” which depicted a bleak future where society had declined due to a lack of education and critical thinking. Deeply disturbed by this vision, he began to observe similar trends in his own life, particularly in his son’s growing reluctance towards schooling due to systemic flaws and a lack of real-world relevance in the current educational system.
This pivotal moment ignited a fire within Captain Preetham, fueling his mission to change the educational landscape and make learning meaningful, relevant, and beyond the confines of traditional curricula. Over the next few years (2012-1016), he embarked on a journey of self-exploration, travelling to progressive schools around the world that were working towards building a healthy community of individuals. His extensive experience as a sailor for over two decades provided him with a unique perspective and the opportunity to encounter inspiring educators and admirable mentors. Captain Preetham says, “I used these years to volunteer at schools which gave me the confidence and ground learning of what was the need of the hour. I started believing that this was an idea whose time had come.”
Embarking on a New Voyage
In 2016, after years of volunteering at schools and gaining valuable insights, Captain Preetham made a bold decision. He hung up his sailing boots as a ship captain and embarked on a new voyage as an entrepreneur, establishing Skills Beyond Education. With a clear mission to help individuals, both adolescents and adults, go from an ordinary mindset to a champion’s mindset, Captain Preetham set out to empower people to set and direct their own lives.
Through his innovative venture, Skills Beyond Education, he holds the key to unlocking success in life. On a mission to transform individuals into their most successful selves, he draws from a wealth of experiences and philosophies that transcend traditional education.
Captain Preetham says, “Our success in the L&D space is driven by a guiding philosophy rooted in diverse educational methodologies and spiritual philosophies. Notably among them are Vedanta, Anthroposophy, Zen Wisdom, Nature’s Wisdom, Stoicism, the Democratic educational movement, and most of all, my own sea-life experiences and mentorship practices at sea.”
Guiding You Turn Your Aspirations into Outcomes
With a focus on empowering adolescents and adults alike, he aims to cultivate a champion’s mindset that enables individuals to take charge of their lives and aspirations. Inspired by the novel approaches, says Captain Preetham, they offer innovative programs like star-gazing camps, the art of discipline workshops, and Immerse leadership workshops for an enriching, immersive and long-lasting learning experience.
In a continuously evolving landscape, Captain Preetham says their belief at the core is that WILL (power) is a superpower that we must all learn to harness. “A secret that many successful people have shared with me only reinforced this belief,” he insists.
With WILL power (Sankalp Shakti), one can overcome any obstacle and accomplish many dreams. He furthers that their programs for professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, teachers, and students are curated using this WILL model to build personal, professional, business, and financial growth.
While their early years focused on individual will for personal success, their programs and offerings are now designed to build team and organizational will, says Captain Preetham. “Our USP positions us as India’s first organization that exclusively specializes in using WILL model programs to deliver its services for personal growth and development for children and adults.”
“To gain mastery of our WILL means gaining mastery over our life, goals and destiny.” Sankalp Shakti (WILL) means to turn your aspirations into outcomes.
This commitment to using the WILL model positions Skills Beyond Education as a new leader in the L&D sector dedicated to driving positive change and innovation in personal and professional development through this new path.
An All-Inclusive Leadership
Recognized as the driving force behind his company’s achievements, Captain Preetham endeavours to inspire his team through inclusive leadership—leadership driven by high integrity, high performance, and bold action.
“We reinforce our mission and goals consistently,” he says. We prioritize the personal and professional growth of our teammates and clients and offer them significant responsibility and high levels of autonomy.
Captain Preetham says this approach strengthens their organization while empowering his team to reach its full potential. He adds that innovation, growth, and disruption are natural cycles of the universe. “We adopt these nature’s lessons as well through a dynamic three-step cycle of innovation, iteration, and disruption.”
This proactive loop integrates customer feedback with tangible results and real changes experienced by customers, along with rigorous internal reviews conducted by the team.
This iterative process ensures that they remain responsive to customer needs and market demands and maintain a competitive edge in an ever-changing landscape.
Integrating Digitally Advanced LMS
Digitalization and technological advancements are crucial aspects of the modern industrial ecosystem. Captain Preetham shares that in their commitment to embracing automation for efficiency while maintaining personalized customer engagement, they integrate robust Learning Management Systems (LMS) to streamline training delivery, tracking, and management.
“Our learning tools ensure easy access to learning materials, progress tracking, and actionable analytics for continuous improvement.” Additionally, they have developed and deployed e-learning modules and mobile-friendly content, enabling flexible, accessible learning experiences tailored to diverse preferences.
Believing that the workforce is the cornerstone of every successful organization, Captain Preetham says they offer personalized learning paths that align with individual goals. They ensure high-quality mentoring access from seniors, including himself, and nudging the team to learn from diverse courses and outside mentors and gain certifications. “Continuous learning is a mindset we strive to foster in our teams.”
Conquering Challenges
Challenges are always a part of every successful journey. Externally, says Captain Preetham, the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to change their approach and shift from offline to online programs and later to a healthy mix of hybrid delivery.
In their initial years, they were primarily focused on offline programs for adolescents’ growth and success and teen parenting programs. But during the pandemic, their team was quick to adapt, and they redesigned the program to make it suitable for adults and to deliver their content online.
Internally, he adds, “We too struggle to get, retain and develop our team to become high performers.” In one instance, they encountered a challenge with an employee who showed great potential in her work but struggled with punctuality and staying organized, often missing deadlines. Through personalized and consistent training and mentorship, she gradually improved and later excelled in these areas.
With dedication and support, she transformed into a high performer, becoming a valuable asset to their team. “This instance underscores our commitment to nurturing talent not just for our clients but within our teams as well.”
The Hexagonal Success Mantra
Businesses are a way for the Indian industry to pace up its economic potential and capacity. In his advice, Captain Preetham offers six winning mindsets that, according to him, every budding entrepreneur aspiring to enter the startup niche must develop:
*Discipline – personal, professional and financial discipline. Starting from getting up to do the things you committed to do every day, creating and following organizational processes, and sticking to the financial discipline of meeting growth and managing expenses.
*Detach – To practice the art of detachment from offerings: programs, products or services. To learn to let go of failed offerings and to be ready to change your path – not your goal (mission).
*Patience – To know or believe in your work, to know that bad times will turn around provided you are patient, to have the resilience for yourself and to keep nudging your team along.
*Guiding principles– To steer by them as your north star, to be guided through them during rough seas or during moments when you lack clarity on how to proceed further. Your guiding principles are your gold standard.
*Failure-proof – To be resilient to failures is the hallmark of a successful entrepreneur, with battle scars of failed and low moments when the world laughed but got up again and again. You will probably fail more times than you will succeed, but knowing that when you do succeed, the failures are all worth it.
*Process building– Focus on building processes for yourself and your team. This should be where most of your time and energy should be spent. It will prevent a lot of headaches and heartache as you grow taller in your industry.
Fostering Tomorrow’s WILL-Powered Education
Looking ahead, Captain Preetham divulges his vision for Skills Beyond Education: To be India’s foremost leader in WILL Power Education and to help individuals learn and practice the art of discipline, a skillset and mindset that is needed by everyone in any line of work. “Everyone agrees we need it, but nobody teaches us how to mindfully develop it.”
“Our vision for the future is to help individuals, teams, and organizations go from ordinary to champions mindset, to excel and thrive personally, professionally and financially,” he concludes.
For more information, click on https://www.skillsbeyondeducation.com/, email at support@skillsbeyondeducation.com, or contact 8951178800.
